Just bought a G5 Mac Tower.. Ram Question

Hi guys, my pc died on me on Monday and my coworker sold me his G5 Mac tower he didn't need anymore since he uses a macbook now. I know its not intel based model but I am fine with not running the latest OS. It currently has Leopard on it, Dual 1.8ghz and 3.5 gigs of ram. The computer runs solid and boots up faster than my cell phone, it has TONS of software loaded on it already which I am very happy about. However I have a couple of questions for you mac experts.

If I am viewing a page on safari with a lot of pictures or a video it will slightly slow down a little. Not very noticeable on most web pages, only those with very large amounts of data or videos. It currently has 3.5 gigs of ram, If I add another 2 gigs will it make a significant difference performance wise?

The motherboard has 8 dimm slots, what is the max amount of ram I can put on it?

Many thanks for any input. I am stoked to have joined the mac world. I am planning on getting familiarized and using this G5 for a while and eventually upgrade to something intel based.

da_committee said:

If I am viewing a page on safari with a lot of pictures or a video it will slightly slow down a little. Not very noticeable on most web pages, only those with very large amounts of data or videos. It currently has 3.5 gigs of ram, If I add another 2 gigs will it make a significant difference performance wise?

Click to expand...

Short answer:

No.

Long Answer:

Your PM G5 is from the 2003-2004 timeframe...that means that it's around 8-9 years old. What this computer is suffering from is "old computer syndrome". If 1000 gigabyte of ram could be put in it, it wouldn't speed up internet video.

Enjoy it exactly as it is,

- Nick

What version of OSX is installed? Click on the Apple in the top left corner and on About this Mac.



I do agree with Nick though, you have plenty of RAM. More RAM with any OS that your G5 will run will not help video and complex pages.

Thanks for the input guys, it has 10.5.8

10.5 Leopard (TO ME) is the most draggy version of OSX I have ever used. Takes ages to boot up. BUT, you are stuck with it as if you went back to say 10.4 Tiger you would be in even worse shape browser and app wise.

Most of what you are seeing is just old Browser versions and the modern web. On my 2.1 Ghz IMac G5, 10.5.8 on the web is not that slow or draggy. Just when compared to an Intel based Mac with 10.6 do I see the difference.

One thing you might do is clean up the OS a bit as that might help a lot. Download a version of Onyx (be sure you get the correct version for 10.5) and run all the maintenance and cleanup tasks. That might make a large difference.

Did the machine come with an OSX DVD at all? If so I would suggest reinstalling the OS and putting it in your name as you never know what it's previous owner has done with it.

One Thing I will recommend is using "Camino" for your web browser; It is still updated for PPC and runs very well in my experiences... I'm Using it right now on my G4 MDD Tower.
[ Camino. ]

Also- You said that if you load a page with alot of video it will slow down; I'm assuming you mean flash. If that is the case, you can prevent it from loading the flash automatically.

(1)Go into your browser "Preferences".
(2)Click on the "Web Features" tab
(3)Check the box that says "Block Flash animations"

This will block them from loading automatically -- but you can still make them load by clicking on the flash logo.
This is convenient because if there are many flash videos on a page, you can choose the ones you want to load. Definitely helps with annoying flash Ads. (Remember the latest versions of flash are not available for any PPC macs...This won't prevent you from most flash-related things however)

I would Also Follow the advice of Dtravis. - Doing a clean install of OSX would speed up things, not so much internet-wise however. If you want to keep the "TONS of software", make sure you back it up on an External.

Depending on what you plan to do with this, It could last you a good few years. However, as we move more and more into the age where everything revolves around the internet, you may start to encounter some problems.

--But hey; that's not stopping me!